‘ello again!

I’m back to recap s’more, but first – news from the Now My husband got me this really neat book of Mandalas that you color in yourself, for our anniversary (It’s called Coloring Mandalas for insight, healing, and self expression, but Susanne F. Fincher btw!) I began working with it yesterday, and there was a whole section in the front that describes the various stages of what they call The Great Mandala, aka the cycle of life which, spiral-like, repeats as you come to a better and better understanding of your true Self.

I had been outside, enjoying the sun and the sound of the wind and the water gurgling in the fountain, and one of my roomies came and offered me a flower essence to try, rose something… I did, and not long after I felt very floaty and peaceful, even more than I had been already. I went inside, finishing up reading about the various stages while laying down – one of them is described as first occurring while you’re aware yet still in the womb. I thought this was interesting.

I flipped to the first page you could color in the book, and there was a person in the circle, curled in on themselves. I put the book down, suddenly feeling the pressure, the darkness, and a claustrophobic fear of what it had been like. This really surprised me, and I closed my eyes and went with it, to see where it would take me. I had no idea just what was there waiting for me…

I described it to my friend Steve in a text message, and I think I’m just going to go ahead and re-type that out, here… It’s necessarily short being a text message and all, but still very poignant…

Well, I be queen o’sensitivity, right? So, imagine you’re a baby, empathically in touch with your mom, perfectly happy and safe. Then things start to get a little cramped, a little uncomfortably tight in there. You’re too big to stay, but don’t want to leave – but you’re being forced to. Contractions start, and it’s scary and not safe or happy anymore and you feel crushed, not knowing what you did to deserve this. Mom’s there, though, so somehow it’s okay…but still, it doesn’t feel okay. It’s becoming unbearable. You give up on trusting her, or what’s going on, and start to panic, trying to stop it, to get away from the crushing, to stay where you were happy and safe. You are being forced down and out and away from where you want to to be, so you fight it, trying to go up instead. To hide, to remain embraced, unseparated. This came across to the doctors as my trying to breech the womb – this would be bad.

Suddenly you realize that your first act as an aware being must have been some horrible, cardinal sin of some kind, because all of a sudden mom’s gone, and now you’re trapped, crushed…and all because you didn’t trust, because of something you did. (They had put her under, to perform a C section.) So, you’re totally alone for the first time ever in your existence, and suddenly you experience cold for the first time, too, and real pain, and disorientation and bright lights and the hands of strangers – all of it alone, because you dared to act on your own.

I spent the next few years re-enacting that experience… Being beaten and then thrown in dark, cramped closets, sexually abused and tossed in a closet… No pain was worse than knowing that you were the one that destroyed the no-separation…and that you have the ability to do it again if you choose to act and not trust. So, age 2, age 3, age 4, age 6, 9, 15… I experienced over and over and over again letting go and giving up my power and ability to act because I thought not trusting was the unforgivable sin.

It wasn’t until I was 19 that I faced a situation and changed it using my own will, and I was terrified having done it… I’ve been afraid to act at all, to create on my own, ever since. Better to twist my own body to make it so I can’t act and do something unforgivable and punishable by the worst pain/terror I could ever imagine. I didn’t trust myself…my ability to create… On top of this, I carried an inability to relax into comfort and safety. Being comfortable and safe scared me – I’ve believed that that just means something very bad is about to happen, so I’ve forever been on my guard. Against creating/mis-creating, and that fear/on guard state rises even higher when I’ve been comfortable and happy.

Even the back surgery, at the sacral chakra area… a symptom of a fear to create and feel abundant. There are so many unraveling connections and ohhhhhhh’s going on with this it is amazing.

During this recall time, I was there for my baby self, present in the past, and I felt the overwhelm point where my soul fragmented. I’ve healed these before, at each of those points I mentioned above where abuse took place, but I’ve never encountered one so…Big. It was a soundless scream, a wrenching tearing, and as I embraced it a small part of the me in the Now was a little ‘Uh oh…can I do this? This is REALLY big…’

I reaffirmed the presence of my guides and guardian angels and closed my eyes and went into the scream, and I just about lost it as I experienced it together with my baby self, for the first time. See, I fragmented, instead of allowing myself to experience that scream, back as a baby…if that makes sense… I couldn’t handle it back then (and I was barely able to handle it now!) But, using a crystal, relying on my adult self and my guides, I embraced that scream back into myself, into my lungs and heart, and I cried. A lot.

I felt very odd, afterward. Floaty and free, yet unsure of who I was… I felt okay, elated by what I had done, but I knew I needed to be sure to give myself some extra TLC. I knew there was more to come – putting humpty dumpty back together again can be an arduous process, and my foundation had received such a rocking, I knew much sifting, sorting and resettling was going to be going on… so I went and got a nice easy dinner for myself, and some cuddle socks I had been really wanting from the Life is Good store.

I was scared to go to sleep that night, last night… The dark was darker, and the alone was aloner… I finally did fall asleep, and when I woke up today I was in a major funk. I questioned all my choices, even being in Sedona. I questioned all of my creations, in other words, the last vestiges of an ego fragment leaving the building is usually it putting up a last ditch effort to convince you that you can’t live without it Knowing this helped surprisingly little, though…

I did qigong, sat in the sun, took a walk, drank lots of water, cuddled in my socks, napped, ate extra chocolate, and questioned everything I did for at least half the day. The fear voice was having a heyday, making me question everything. It was interacting with people, doing healing work on second life, talking to Pat last night and Keith and Steve today, interacting with my roomies and doing thing that I know I’m good at that shifted me out of it.

That and beginning to color the mandala I had seen. It showed the cramped person actually being gently held by a cloaked figure. I put a little smile on the cramped person’s face, and she began to look more like she was so relaxed that she was resting in an odd position, rather than being crushed…held gently by this cloaked figure. I gave her golden red hair and blue eyes and a green smile…

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring… how I’ll feel, what I’ll do… I recognize I’m in the stage the Mandala book referred to as Fragmentation… The next stage, if I follow in order, will be Transcendent Ecstasy. I really like the descriptions for the stages, so I’ll share them here, straight from the book

Fragmentation, stage 11, continues the entropy begun in the Gates of Death. This stage is about challenges to your body, and much more. What began as endings in the outer world continue here as a destructuring of your ego to the point that you may feel like a stranger to yourself. (I’ll vouch for that ) This is all a necessary prelude to a major reorganization of your ego. For many this stage is profoundly disturbing, ad they find their belief in the ultimate order of things is challenged. It is not unusual to feel dizzy or nauseated when experiencing this stage.

Your understanding of the nature of reality may be changed by what you experience here in Fragmentation. It may seem that ou have completely lost contact with the Self, but the chaos experienced here is really orchestrated by the Self. The disorganization speeds the letting go that is necessary before your ego cn be restructured in a stronger, mroe complex pattrn in keeping with your potential for wholeness. The Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross knew this stage well. He described it as the Dark Night of the Soul. This stage can bring you intense spiritual experiences.

Transcendent Ecstasy, stage 12, reflects the blissful experience that folllows the struggle of the previous stage. It comes as the result of embracing the limitations of the physical body and stepping beyond into a much larger dimension where spirit permeates and supports everything. In this stage, you experience the freedom of transcending beliefs that ha become too narrow for you. It is the gift of old age and those rare moments of ecstasy earlier in life. You knowingly surrender our ego to th e care of the Self, and yu are rewarded with a glimpse of ultimate reality, a sense of the divine order and your rightful place within it. On a spiritual level, stage 12 is a moment of understanding the divine through direct experience, rather than by intellect. It is a moment to be treasured as the essence of your circling the Great Round. Take it with you like a seed to be planted in the darkness for your next beginning in stage 1, the Void.

I think, tomorrow, I’ll color in the cloaked figure with a little green smile and gold aura, too…

Hehe, and now I’m so sleepy I don’t feel like recapping anymore, so, I tink I’ll just change the title of this to News from the Now instead of Part 2, and return to recapping tomorrow or the next day. I will explain the next one, though! It’s a short one

Intentional Intentions

Before I left on the road trip to Sedona, I said a prayer, made a request of my higher self, god, etc. I asked to please be put in touch with those people that I was intended be put in touch with…that I was open to experiencing people, and healing and being healed, the whole way. And that’s just what happened, and turned out to be the fodder for almost all of the really cool stories to follow.